


Superhuman

by vote_for_trash



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Action, Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, Attempt at Humor, Canon-Typical Violence, High School, Other, Spiderman!Mark, a lil bit of angst later maybe idk??, i write at a turtle pace im sorry :(, im bad at tagging, mark is a nerd, science shit that i deadass just googled
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-30
Updated: 2019-06-30
Packaged: 2020-05-31 03:16:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,898
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19417369
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vote_for_trash/pseuds/vote_for_trash
Summary: 16 year old Mark Lee was a science buff living his best life. Attending the most prestigious STEM high school in America, with top grades and a practically guaranteed career in chemistry waiting for him after graduation.But a little spider had other plans for him...





	Superhuman

**Author's Note:**

> can you tell i don’t know what i’m doing??? n e way i hope y’all like it >:))

_Uh, my name is Mark Lee, I’m 16_

_I grew up in Canada but I currently live with my cousin Johnny, in Chicago_

_I go to Lawrence Preparatory Institute of Sciences_

_I like watermelon, sci-fi movies and um-_

_I’m also kind of a superhero now..._

-

“You okay there, bud?”

Mark hasn’t realized he had been staring down at his bowl of cereal for the past few minutes, Johnny trying to make eye contact.

“Couldn’t sleep” he said simply, hoping to leave it at that. That wasn’t an option with Johnny.

“Whoa, come again? You’re a growing boy, you-“

“I’m 16, not 8...”

“...You’re a moody and hormonally unbalanced growing boy! I can’t have you being sleep deprived under my care!”

“Since when have you cared about my sleep schedule?” Mark said, with no real malice to his words.

“Since your parents threatened me. Now finish your breakfast, I don’t want to invoke their wrath for you being late to school too”

Johnny got up and left the room, getting ready for the day ahead, leaving Mark in the small kitchen alone with his soggy bowl of Apple Jacks. It was gonna be a long day...

-

“Oh god oh fuck oh god oh fuck”

He opened the door and basically propelled himself inside the building, the sheer force of his strides allowing for nothing less. He got a few ugly stares from others whose punctuality gave them the luxury of walking anywhere under a sprint. It was only then he realized his careless running in the school’s cramped hallways was probably a safety hazard.

But so was Professor Jung when he was angry.

His panic run paid off, reaching homeroom class in a staggering 2.66 minutes from the general entrance, something he had never done before.

He’d also never crashed face first into a solid plywood door after failing to halt his momentum.

There’s a first for everything, I guess.

The door swung open and a tall man in modest attire glared into an empty hall.

“Huh-“ He scanned his eyes down to see a Mark-shaped ball on the floor, groaning in pain.

“Oh my god-Mark are you okay?!” he asked, pulling him up gently. He got no answer.

“Just peachy...” Mark croaked back, his voice dry after having the literal wind knocked out of him.

Limping into the room, he dropped down onto his seat, his peers boring holes into the side of his neck (understandably, he just delivered a seismic slam into the other side of their door)

Professor Jung made his way back to the front of the class, continuing his spiel on artificial amino acids.

A lithe figure, fluffy auburn hair, a long nose, rounded eyes. Professor Jung looked like a supermodel who _willingly_ put himself in khakis and button up shirts. He wondered why he chose to coop himself up in a classroom, teaching a bunch of prepubescent kids when he could be making easy money by just standing around and looking pretty. (Mark had actually asked him this once, his reply simply being “I don’t like being told what to do”).

“And I hope you took that all down cause the exam won’t be as forgiving as I am”

Shit, Mark hadn’t been taking notes.

-

“How you holding up?” Professor Jung took a seat next to Mark on the bench in front of the nurses office, the teenage boy holding an ice pack to his cheek.

“As good as you can expect” he responded, sounding so unintentionally cynical. He removed his source of cold to show the red blotch already forming on his right cheek.

“Ouch, that’s one hell of a contusion...”

“Hurts like one too” Mark plopped the ice back on his cheek, a sting making him wince.

“You know, if you don’t feel up to it you don’t have to go to lab today...” Jung said, pity in his eyes.

Oh fuck, he’s right. Today they had lab.

“No! It’s okay, I’ll be fine. This-this is nothing” The tiny squeal of pain he tried to bite back begged to differ. Mark was an open book and Professor Jung definitely wasn’t illiterate.

“You sure about that?”he said, pointing at Mark’s deathly grip on his precious ammonium nitrate, his only source of relief.

“Yeah, I’m...perfect don’t worry about me”

“Alright, it’s up to you. Well, I gotta get back to the board. See you at the lab?”

“Definitely”

“Cool. Don’t push yourself, Mark”

“Will do, Teach”

Professor Jung dawdled backwards with a smile, Mark giving him his best grin in return.

Professor Jung was the closest thing Mark had to a friend in this school. (Yes, Mark was an outcast in a school of other outcasts. Get on his level, nerds). His teacher saw potential in him. Gave him the support he wouldn’t receive otherwise. And Mark was grateful.

So no, he wasn’t going to miss the most important class of the week (and a chance to impress Professor Jung) because of a stupid face bruise that hurt more than he cared to admit.

-

Mark underestimated what a few sheets plywood could do to you in terms of injury. His face throbbed as he tried his best to retain what Professor Jung was saying. (Something’s about RNA Polymerase, his pain riddled mind couldn’t be too sure).

His ice pack was long discarded, now wishing nothing more than to feel the comforting cold on his cheek again.

“-Nucleotides in codons which encodes our amino acids. Nucleotide substitution, such as A-G substitution results in?”

“Amino acid changes”

“Exactly, and I’m sure you all know what those do. As well as the amino acids, changes in nucleotides will cause alleles to form from strands of DNA or RNA, resulting in changes such as variation or more severe forms that we know as...”

He began to write quickly and in large letters.

M-U-T-A-T-I-O-N

“Mutation”

A lot of eyes widened in the class. The insinuation was more than enough to get some heads and gears turning. Professor Jung giggled at their reaction.

“What’s with the long faces?” He said while forming a soft grin to lighten the mood.

Yeri, small girl in the back, raised her hand. Rather thin, with big eyes and short black hair held back by a purple headband. Professor Jung nodded at her.

“W-with all due respect Professor, this seems like a dangerous topic to be doing experiments on...” she said meekly.

His smile stayed put.

“Well, I guess it’s a good thing you’re all very skilled students then”

Without warning, he lifted a clear, thin containment flask from the table behind his back. They recognized the cylindrical container as the ones littered all over the laboratory slabs after hours. Except this time it didn’t contain the usual airborne viral bacteria.

Instead it held a small, dark spider.

Parasteatoda tepidariorum, also know as the “common house spider”, crawling around and almost desperately trying to climb up its glass walls to no avail. It seemed to be twitching, moving rabidly like it had nothing holding it back.

Some of the students looked like they had just seen a rotting corpse, backing away instinctively and giving fearful remarks. Professor Jung’s didn’t seem to take notice.

“This is the an example of mutation. The parasteatoda tepidariorum was born from an egg that underwent nucleotide replacement in its early stages. Such changes created new amino acids and alleles that dictated the spiders biology. If you look closely, you’ll notice some of the typical parasteatoda features are different”

A few more shrieks of panic and disgust were heard as Professor Jung walked down the aisle of tables with the flask in a delicate hand. He paced the aisle and back to his own, placing the container back into the table carefully.

“But mutation doesn’t always look like this, it can be shown in a much smaller scale, which is what we’ll be doing today”

A large portion of the class sighed and Mark swore he heard a scream of exasperation.

“Experimenting on living invertebrates is honestly, rather time consuming and a risky, with only a .97% chance that you’ll even see mutation truly happen. There are much more productive and efficient ways to observe mutagens in action, such as the method in today’s lesson-“

“Then how’d you get that spider?” An unnamed voice asked suddenly, and shakily. Professor Jung didn’t even look back at the class as he answered without hesitation.

“That’s a very good question, but I don’t want to stray off topic”

-

“And don’t forget your reports tomorrow! Principal Kim is gonna kill me if I get them late again!”

The usually loud students filed out with few words, maybe some ‘okay’s here and there.

And of course, Mark who was still at his stool, fervently trying to shove his tortured notebook into the backpack. He gave up, eventually settling on just laying it back on the table.

“Hey, Mark” Professor Jung sauntered his way, leaning on the table.

“Hey Teach” Mark looked up to see his professor sporting a chagrin expression. He sighed and pulled a stool to sit across the table from Mark.

“Did I go too far?” he asked, sounding defeated.

“Too far with what?”

“The spider...I thought it would be a good example to show the class. But I guess it wasn’t a crowd favorite”

They took a pause of unbearable silence.

“If it makes you feel better, I thought it was pretty dope”

“That’s what you say about everything, Mark” he said, trying to continue his sad spiel but couldn’t deny the fact that the young boy’s remark did make him smile.

“But it’s true, it really was amazing! Everyone here is just afraid of insects...” Mark contended.

“Arachnids” Professor Jung corrected him.

“Yeah, sorry...arachnids”

“Well...” Mark sighed, slinging his backpack over his shoulder in one smooth motion, “I should get going. Johnny’s favorite pastime is worrying about me when I’m not home by 5 PM sharp”

“Your cousin, right? I’ve yet to meet him” the professor inquired.

“And I plan to keep it that way. He’s horny and lonely and you’re his type. You’d be dodging a bullet” Mark teased. Professor Jung let out a modest chuckle.

“Good to know. See you tomorrow, Mark...”

“Same here, Teach”

“And take care of that bruise!”

With a faux stoic salute, Mark backed away and through the lab door, planning on making his way to the subway station as quick as possible.

The image of Professor Jung sporting such an ignominious expression only stuck in his head. He took such a blow to his confidence because he wanted to show his students something groundbreaking. He was more than a teacher to Mark, dare he say, best friend. And it hurt him to see him so down.

The laboratory was pretty far north in the building, Mark only just reaching the main entrance before feeling like he was missing something. His hands felt unexplainably empty, and he remembered. 

“Shit, my notebook” he whispered, darting back the way he came hoping to reach the lab before it would be locked for the night. Hopefully, Professor Jung would still be in there.

He remembered having it in under his arm while speaking to the professor, planning on reviewing his notes on the train back home.

A few sharp turns later, he reached that cold metal door and swung it open so unknowingly fervently he could feel a few muscles in his arm being pulled.

“Professor Jung, I’m sorry I just forg-“ The stunning lack of the professor confounded him.

The door was open, and labs always had to be locked if a practitioner wasn’t using it.

His train of thought didn’t last very long, seeing the familiar blue notebook with; “ _PROPERTY OF MARK LEE DONT TOUCH >:(_“ scrawled on it in black permanent marker. He figured a quick slip in and out wouldn’t hurt. After all, it wasn’t _his fault_ the lab had been left open.

Mark sauntered in, figuring he had no reason to be so careful, and snatched his notebook up from the table.

Now, he could go home-

_**crack** _

It was a hushed sound but felt so loud in Mark’s ears. And down he looked, to what he presumed was the source of the sound.

Under his sneakers were cracked shards. Shards of glass, some more crushed than others. A few piece were also littering the edge of Professor Jung’s table.

_Professor Jung’s table_...

And suddenly Mark had never felt his blood pump faster.

“Ohmygod-“ he struggled to say in one breath, stepping off the glass with a sudden jerk.

The spider, the spider wasn’t anywhere to be seen. Only the thing once containing it shattered to pieces on the white floors.

God, he swore he didn’t hear anything break while he was here, it must’ve happened before. But being scapegoated was the least of his worries right now.

“Shit“ was all he could still coherently say when his mouth was cramping up and failing him in this moment of panic.

If his heart wasn’t beating at breakneck speeds already, he heard the unmistakable sound...

... _the unmistakable sound of the lab door being closed shut_.

“No...nonononono-“ Mark muttered, the tick in his voice only going up with every syllable. He tugged at the handle, it wouldn’t even budge. Not like it had been locked, but rather jammed.

A few kicks and slams did nothing but make his legs and hands ache at such forced contact against a cold metal door.

“Professor Jung! Professo-“ he yelled as he yanked at the handle again, a classic yet stupid sign of his brain short circuiting in panic even when he knew better.

“Professor!” was the last thing Mark could scream at the top of his lungs.

The door wasn’t going to move anytime soon, he was on the third story of a building that may as well have been the dictionary definition for minimalist architecture.

The direct approach didn’t seem to be working, Mark instead carefully but quickly going to his backpack to fish for his phone, remembering he was stuck in a room with a potentially deadly spider specimen on the loose, after all. 

He could just call- 

He felt a startling lack of his phone where he remembered to have left it.

Removing all the books in a sloppy bit speedy manner, still no phone. It wasn’t in his pockets. Still nothing. Mark was usually incredibly responsible with his things but today just had to be the day his habits failed him.

He racked his brain for any sort of other possible method for escape, and for such a mind he came up blank. It was maybe then when the realization that Professor Jung’s purely experimental and possibly mortal spider was simply crawling around truly hit him.

Except this time he couldn’t find it in himself to panic like before. No, now he was truly scared.

His breathing got slower, heavier, more labored. While his mind alarmed for him to do something, anything at all, he couldn’t find the will to take his deathly grip off the edge of a table he was currently using to stop himself from doubling over.

Mark couldn’t even bring himself to look anywhere that wasn’t the same white wall before him in fear that if he turned to look anywhere else, he would see the spider. Which he would have to do if he was to avoid it at all, but he couldn’t look- he didn’t _want_ to look.

And thinking back on it, Mark wished that voice in his head had been more insistent, or if he should’ve just listened.

Perhaps then, he wouldn’t have have to experience that small needle-like feeling that prodded at the skin of his hand in a slow, orderly manner.

And much too late, he looked down at his hand that had been gripping the table behind him like a pillar.

A small, brown and mottled spider was crawling along his hand, his veins, as if it was tracing them.

Its proportions looked unlike that of any other normal household spider. For one, its legs looked uneven. Some looked swollen and stunted, while others longer and thinner. Its body was covered in bubble-like lumps as well. Such a thing should be unable to move with such proportional impediments and deformations, yet it crawled with ease like any other spider.

And Mark...

Mark _froze_.

And the spider...

Well, it took no time to sink it fangs quickly into one of the boy’s blue blood vessels that lined his wrist. 

He would’ve screamed had the immediate searing pain not completely rendered him paralyzed. He couldn’t think, couldn’t get a signal up to his brain telling him to move. Just the white burning sensation running through his veins like having molten magma injected into his bloodstream.

In such a state he could no longer keep himself upright, his legs giving into a lack of strength provided by his failing body. He saw his whole arm trembling uncontrollably yet he felt nothing.

He couldn’t even feel the cold of the linoleum floor as he met the ground, couldn’t feel himself obviously convulsing from what his eyes were noticing, not even how he gasped for breath unknowingly with a heaving chest. Just the feeling of being enveloped in this numbing pain.

And he was quickly overcome with a new feeling once again.

Unconsciousness.

**Author's Note:**

> clown of the year award goes to me for posting this


End file.
